The Touch of Satan (1971)

Another film I had the pleasure of watching through the eyes of Mystery Science Theater 3000.This film struggles between 3 different genres (road movie, love story, and supernatural thriller to be specific), and fails at all of them. The acting overall is pretty bland, and the story seems to be made up as it goes along. Here's the plot in a nutshell. A guy (Jody) is on a road trip. Stops at a pond to eat lunch, sees a girl (Melissa), both of them end up falling in love, oh and it turns out that she's possessed by Satan and is 127 years old. He decides to leave, but then comes back and decides that he doesn't care if she is possessed by Satan. They screw, she almost dies, he turns to Satan to save her. The end.What little horror and/or tension exists in this movie, is reduced simply to jump scares and underacting. The scenes with the burned grandmother/sister were predictable. Even during the witch burning flashback, the "big Satan curses you speech" was pretty underwhelming for what it was meant to be. But with all of it's faults, it's still not incredibly bad. It's bad, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't have bothered to watch this film had it not been for Mike Nelson, Tom Servo, and Crow T. Robot.But even without the riffing, the movie still held my attention somewhat. I'll admit the score was pretty interesting, and the overall plot was OK, but it could've used some really heavy tweaking. I would actually recommend watching this over some other world-renowned bad films like "The Room" or "Battlefield Earth". While those movies are both outlandish spectacles of poor acting, poor writing, and poor direction, this film really only suffers from severe mediocrity. Although it's still not worthy of a watch on it's own without MST3K. But then again, I don't think that this is available anywhere else besides MST3K.Also, a little side note about the last scene, I wonder if the writer(s) of the film "High Spirits" starring Steve Guttenburg and Daryl Hannah ever actually saw this film. Not that "High Spirits" had anything to do with Satan, more like the supernatural in general, but there is a sex scene between Guttenburg and Hannah that ends with Hannah's character rapidly aging to match her "actual age", very similar to what happens to Melissa at the end of "Touch of Satan". Seriously check this out on MST3K, then check out "High Spirits". You might be surprised by the similarities.

Sometimes I feel like I ramble on and on when I'm writing one of these. No worries this time though, because I'm keeping it short and sweet. The Touch of Satan is one of the biggest bores of a movie to ever come down the pike. Lackluster people doing dull and unimaginative things make for one excruciating experience. Even when Grandma shows up and hacks up a few people, it's met with the same ho-hum enthusiasm as the rest of the movie. For what it's worth, I've rated The Touch of Satan an incredibly generous 2/10.As with many of the "bad" movies I've been watching lately, I saw The Touch of Satan courtesy of Mystery Science Theater 3000. While some of the riffs (particularly those about the long pauses in the dialogue) are very funny, overall the episode is too inconsistent to rate too highly. I'll give Episode #908 a wishy-washy and very average 3/5 on my MST3K rating scale.

**This review is based on the MST3K version of the movie.**This is a movie about a direction-less, spineless, and unlikable "hero" ( or at least the producer's idea of one) named Jodie who drives out to the country to eat his sandwich and meets a farm girl named Melissa. Melissa has a slight problem being that about 120 years ago she sold her soul to Satan and with our "hero" Jodie ( a male ) on the job the chances for correcting this problem do not look good. Jodie ends up spending a couple of days with Melissa at her family's walnut farm with her drab family who we do not care for or find interesting except for her old and ugly sister who makes a few appearances to murder people.The acting is bad but what will really get to you is the SLOW dialog between the two main characters. If you edited out half the gaps between their words the conversation might actually appear to flow normally but since this was not done you are simply left with big gaps where audience members ( the smart ones that is ) will run out of patience and leave the room. It is amazing that the editor left these scenes in; "Yes, no room for improvement here. Another perfect take HA HA!" Speaking of amazing, the song "Amazing Grace" is featured about half a dozen times toward the end of the film. It would have been interesting to have seen this in the theater to see how much the audience groaned when the song started for the third or fourth time. I am sure that a collective "Not again !" drowned out the first measure of the fourth, fifth, and sixth renditions of the song.About the only good thing about the movie is the woman who plays Melissa. She is most pleasant to look at. You think with a few, make that A LOT of acting lessons, her career could have been salvaged but it was not to be. With the mean-spirited and well-crafted remarks of the Mystery Science Theater gang the viewing experience will be about an 8 1/2. This is one of their best projects. They really tear this movie apart which is exactly what it deserves. Without them I only issue this warning; DO NOT WATCH THIS FILM ! YOU WILL BE SORRY ! I GAVE IT A 2 OUT OF 10 AND I MEAN IT !!!**** SEMI-SPOILER AHEAD****Our "hero" Jodie lets us down right to the end of the film. No surprise that a guy who takes THREE DAY lunch breaks is not a champion overcomer of adversity. Non-Christians will find the ending unclimatic but Christians will probably find it offensive much like I did. Remember, throwing a rock or an empty beer bottle at your television will not hurt those who are responsible for this film so just write a scathing review like I did. God Bless Mike and his robot friends.

Seriously, if it weren't for the fact that the DVD of this MST3K Episode contained the trailer, I would not believe this got any distribution.I'm not saying this film had no merits: some cinematography ain't bad, the music's relatively cool, and.... it's just that everything is so bad that it completely blots out those assests to this film, driving this film down to Hell where it belongs. I spent the whole thing wishing it would end with an atom bomb detonating, and taking everyone out. I actually bear the lead characters a grudge: shame on you, Jody guy, you were boring and apparently arrogant enough to assume your fifty year-old guy's face was handsome enough you didn't need to act, and Emby(Melissa), I now take pride in my dreckiest films because they don't include YOU! How could you guys not see what a terrible script you were backing? Hmmm?Now, the old homicidal (Promicidal) woman, you make that Crenshaw guy in Boggy Creek Two seem likable and dimensioned: I wasn't supposed to like you, but you went too far. Bad direction, bad characters, and most annoying, this script is ARROGANT in it's anti-Christianity. look, guys, your ability (what little there is) to make regular people seem bad doesn't prove a thing. You are in no position to criticize anyone else. Rating: .5/4, good for making fun of and destroying.